Camera catches grey fox in action

Editor’s Note. This is the fifth installment in a series about Waban Project’s Team-building Recreation and Environmental Education (TREE) program.

SANFORD — People always wonder what animals do when humans aren’t around. How do they hunt? What paths do they take through the forest? Was Walt Disney right, and they all sing and dance?

Waban’s Adventure Group decided to investigate, so they placed a camera at a remote location off one of the trails of the TREE Center in Sanford. Four days later, the group downloaded the pictures and discovered a fox had visited very early one morning. Sadly, it wasn’t dancing, but the group could see that it was clearly on a mission. Based on the markings found on the fox’s tail, the group discerned that the fox is most likely a grey fox.

The grey fox, Urocyon cinereoargenteus, is similar to the red fox, but with some distinctive differences. The grey fox’s coat is grey in color, with red-colored regions on its neck, sides and legs. According to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife (COSEWIC) in Canada, the grey fox also has a distinct black stripe running down its back to the tip of the tail. It prefers a habitat of forest edges and open woods that its prey also inhabits. The grey fox’s omnivorous diet consists of mice, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, ducks, small birds, berries, nuts, and grasses.

With the first trial so successful, the Adventure group is eager to keep using the trail camera to discover what is going on in the Bauneg Beg Watershed and Waban’s woodlands.